The Snake
'Duc Beauregard''' (more commonly known as "The Snake") is an antagonist in the Stronghold series, and one of the AI opponents in Stronghold Crusader ''and ''Stronghold Kingdoms. Biography In the original Stronghold, The Snake is one of the four lords who have split the land between themselves. Whilst being very conniving and sly, he also bullies The Rat along with The Pig. He is the one who tricked players father into a trap that cost him his life, although he was not the one who actually killed him. The Snake is the second lord to be defeated in the Military Campaign. Stronghold The Snake was once made governor to some of the richest provinces in the homeland where he made an extremely fruitful but less than honourable living from under declaring the taxes collected from his people. The king was eventually made aware of this and decided to have him exiled to Britain in order to keep him at arms length whilst still making use of his talents. Execution was, unfortunately, out of the question as killing such a popular leader with his own hand could well have sparked a revolution. During one of his first military encounters in Britain he went up against your father, losing an eye to him in a skirmish. On that day the Snake swore he would not rest until the decapitated heads of your entire family were lined-up on spikes outside of his keep. Already back to his old tricks, the Snake has his greasy hands in the Rats back pocket, draining his coffers with help from the corrupt tax officials initially sent over to give him aid. Stronghold Crusader The Snake has some ability to run his estate, but little stomach for a full on fight. He likes the hired help to do most of his dirty work for him. Appearance Duc Beauregard is a regal looking gent who is relatively tall and of slight build. He is the most elegant of your opponents (perhaps along with Saladin) as well as the best dressed, making him the complete opposite of The Pig. His chiselled face is accentuated by a head of slicked back black hair, which thins to a point at the front. Only the grey flecks above his ears and the few grey hairs in his short, well-groomed black beard betray his age. As well as wearing tight, figure-hugging clothes, which highlight his slim physique, he also decorates himself with a smattering of lightweight jewellery. Personality Although The Snake is an exceptionally slippery fellow who constantly has his eye open for the next easy profit to be made, this is well hidden behind a confidently worn mask of kindness. He talks slowly and rhythmically as if being careful not to let his true intentions slip and his voice has a raspy edge that makes him emphasize his “S’s”. Always trying to get one-over on whomever he meets, he makes sure to massage the other person’s ego whilst smiling confidently with only one side of his mouth when discussions are going well. If he feels that a deal is about to be struck, he runs his thumb over the pads of his fingers as well as occasionally wetting his lips with rapid flicks of his tongue. If threatened or antagonised, his voice takes on a more condescending tone and he raises the eyebrow above his good eye as if to accent his disgust. Overall, The Snake is a master of the doublecross and will use every dirty trick in the book to stab friends and enemies alike in the back. The Snake, however, is not cruel to his own people, as the Sheriff, with a similar personality, is. This is perhaps because his troops are weak enough as it is, and eroding their morale would make them even worse fighters. Despite his lack of cruelty, however, the Snake is less than chivalrous to opposing lords with his mocking style of taunting. It is unknown how the Snake behaves towards his allies as there is no speech, just one of his soldiers relaying messages, however he appears to be quite helpful to them as he is very willing to send lots of spearmen if a moat needs dug and will usually (if he is not under pressure himself) come to their aid when requested. He will also quite often enthusistically attack an enemy when requsted, and will send small raiding groups to help out in his allies' sieges even when not requested to do so. Finally, he is obsessed with the letter 'S', not only creating his castles in this shape but also having it as the centrepiece for his elaborate purple banner, which he proudly displays behind his throne. Castles and strategies Economy The Snake runs a modest economy focused on military. He builds 2 quarries along with woodcutters and supplies his peasants with numerous apple orchards. He has however, many fletchers and poleturners employed, and he also buys in spears and archers in large batches. He also provides a small variety of food by constantly buying in cheese. He has average taxes, but does not affect popularity or production in any way. Offense The Snake is a considerably aggressive enemy. He uses only cheap troops (apart from a small number of Arabian archers), which means almost infinite attacks, as one group may quickly follow the other. If in a decent starting position he is often is the quickest AI lord in the game to produce a large army. However since these troops are so weak he is not as powerful as he seems. He recruits a bunch of slaves, in much smaller numbers than the Caliph does (but with no fear factor reduction in attack), backed up with slingers and throws them targetting enemy farms and quarries. Slingers are also able to provide a cheap missile cover, as they can effectively kill oxen and workers with one hit. He may also supply these groups with a lonely catapult to provide assistance. If one of his enemies has few troops in their castle and is on the brink of defeat, he becomes more confident and will send these raiding parties directly to their castle, keeping them under a small scale siege with slingers continually firing on the lord and his men from just outside the castle walls and a catapult being moved slowly forward to destroy castle structures. If there is a breach, slaves will eagerly enter and burn down the interior of the castle. His main siege attacks are only composed of lighly armoured troops, but can still be quite menacing. The spearmen he brings rarely pose much of a threat, but the accompanying archers, both European and Arabian, are often deployed in large numbers and can be. These archers are often wisely deployed by the Snake in loose formation, making it harder for tower mounted archers or mangonels to kill them. The Snake sometimes uses two waves of archers, some of them staying behind initially out of range of the enemy's tower mounted archers, firing on enemy workers and protecting the one or two catapults the Snake also brings along. The Snake also sends laddermen in his main attacks, and is the only AI lord to do so, although these are rarely used even if they do make it to the enemy's walls. They do however serve as a distraction to allow his archers more time to fire at enemy towers, and to allow some of his spearmen to reach the enemy walls. The Snake does not use slaves in his main attacks, but they may appear at the same time as part of a raid. His attacks are undertaken very quickly after gathering his men, even if he has catapults to set up, and he doesn't leave his troops to wait for a long time like the Pig does. The danger of the Snake's attacks is that everything usually comes at once very quickly. Defense On low ground, the Snake has a S-shaped castle, bordered by a combination of narrow walls and a moat which encloses his buildings. On high ground, the Snake has an irregular heart shaped castle that sometimes, though not always, encloses all of his buildings. In both designs, perimeter turrets are placed at regular intervals, which are filled with archers. Gatehouses also have a small guard of archers and slingers. The keep is also heavily defended with units since attack forces are assembled there. The Snake has an unnoticeable strike force of archers and spearmen for dangerous situations. He also recruits three groups of archers to patrol his buildings and sometimes has a group of slingers that run around patrolling his outside buildings (much like the Sultan has but not as many). How to deal with Offense To counter his slave raids, a few groups of archers are useful scattered throughout your industry and farm buildings. The large numbers of both European archers and Arab bowmen that the Snake sends as part of his main attacks can be sufficient to pose a threat to tower and wall mounted missile troops, especially is the Snake has built up a large overall army of 300 or more troops (which can happen quite often due to most of his troops being cheap to create). Due to their deployment in such large numbers and in loose formation, as well as the fact that advancing spearmen and laddermen will be distracting your troops' attention at the same time, they can take a while to kill using the conventional tower mounted archers, especially if some hide behind rocks and cliffs that happen to be in the area or, as often happens with the Snake, some remain out of range of archers on towers. Several crossbowmen, each one of which being able to kill one of the Snake's units in one shot as well as being better armoured), are therefore useful alongside the archers. The archers will be needed, however, as their higher rate of fire will counter the Snake's fast attacks effectively. Finally, a few knights, macemen or horse archers are useful to sally out and kill any stubborn enemy archers and stop workers on outlying farms and quarries from being shot at. These units can also destroy the catapults that the Snake usually sends in his sieges. With your missile troops distracted by enemy archers, some of the Snake's spearmen and laddermen may have reached your walls. A few slingers amongst the archers/crossbowmen on your walls may prove useful in killing them (as they can fire more accurately directly downwards), but they are rarely much of a threat anyway. Defense The Snake's towers are small, but are usually packed to full capacity with archers. Trying to kill the lord with mass assassins probably won't work because of this (unless you rush him at the start of the game), although it may be possible if you target him after his army has left his castle on an attack, when he has fewer men on his keep. Instead, after his troops have left the castle on an attack, start the siege by destroying his towers from afar with catapults or trebuchets. This stops as many archers from firing on you during the siege and means that an access route is available into the castle without the bother of trying to dig up the moat. A group of fire ballistae can be used to fire upon the archers and other units on his keep, which can be killed quickly. Finally, as the Snake usually keeps trying to replenish his archers and other troops until the bitter end, his fortress will need to be set on fire to prevent this happening. Destroy the wells with the fire ballistae so he can't put it out. Once the fire stops, a few assassins can then be used to kill the lord. In Stronghold Kingdoms Unlike in Stronghold Crusader, where the Snake's fortress has plenty of curved lines, in Stronghold Kingdoms, his fortress is a narrow rectangle. Like in Stronghold Crusader he defends his fortress with plenty of archers, but in Kingdoms he appears to have upgraded spearmen for pikemen in some instances and downgraded them for armed peasants in others, as there are no spearmen in the game. Quotes *As player's enemy: **Attacking player: Ahhh ... yes, it's time to die. **Failed attack : Grrhh... you servently try my patience, I will remove you yet! **Destroying a structure : It is over my friend, let's face it you lost! **Attacked by player: 'Ahhh... Time to leave...' **Panicking: Ohh ... I think I might just, ahh... **When killed by player: Oh spare me, I wanted only to be your ally, really I did! Navigation ru:Змея Category:Characters